The Incas were among the greatest builders in the ancient world. This book represents a sustained and subtle inquiry into one of their greatest constructions—the lavish royal estate built by the ruler Topa Inca (b. 1408?–1493) at Chinchero, Peru, a vast complex still largely intact and unreconstructed.
Nair’s inquiry is an “attempt at reqsiy, the Quechua word meaning ‘to know a place or people’” (1). This inquiry involved careful and nuanced documentation of the architectural remains at Chinchero, as well as a wide-ranging use of historical, ethnographical, and linguistic data. Nair describes her approach as ideographic—rooted in phenomenology, attentive to architecture as three-dimensional space, and “highlighting the ways people create and transform their spaces to give meaning to their world” (6). Although all human societies engage in this recursive practice, the Incas were particularly skilled and subtle in their creation of space, in many cases conveying messages about power...